The Universe Speaks

The greatest gift a parent can give a child, Linda, is the ability to become independently happy.

And the greatest gift a child can give a parent is exercising that ability.

Happily,
The Universe

You gotta love the Universe, so wise. We are on the home stretch here in the Rhia goes to School sweepstakes. Did the shopping, started packing, spent her gift cards (that she needs to mail the thank you notes for, errrghhhh!) You know how you anticipate something for a really long time and then you just get to a point where you just want to get on with it? It's time to move on. I know she feels it. I know I feel it. It's weird. I guess this is maturity where you know things are gonna be tough occasionally but you know they are going to be great occasionally too.

Acceptance. And maybe a bit of excitement. I'm gonna have a kid go to college! (2 kids actually) No one in my family has ever gone to college. My mom didn't go past the 8th grade, my dad the 9th. They come from very poor folk, they had to work and help support their families, there was no time for school. My mom ironed clothes and worked at People's Drug Store, my dad became a welder and eventually became a builder with his own business. We are blue collar people. My brothers are both construction and HVAC workers. I am of course, a no collar worker. Rhia is the first of my side of the family to actually go away to college and have the whole dorm, well rounded education thing. This is amazing if you think about it.

Barry's family has all been to college and are very wealthy as a result. Doctors, teachers, scientists... To them this is an inevitability. To my family (and me) it is a jaw dropping fantasy. I'm so proud of her. I am so amazed at her perseverance and tenacity in knowing what was (is) best for her and insisting on it. She has a gift of knowing the right thing to do even when everyone, including her parents, are telling her to do something else.

Both of my kids are blessings to this poor ole uneducated yoga teacher. They have the best of both worlds... book learnin' and street smarts or should I say 'heart smarts'? I have always been able to trust that they know the right things even when I don't agree with them. And Thank God, I learned that lesson so early and let them go with their own guts.

When I was 16 I found this poem and it became my blueprint for how I would raise my kids. I pass it on now...


On Children
~Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit,
not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let our bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.